How B2B Business Can Switch to B2C eCommerce

Are you a B2B business that is thinking of selling direct to consumers?

As retailers gain more customers they inevitably demand lower costs from their suppliers to increase their own margins. Unfortunately the internet has made it more difficult to maintain a B2B business because consumers are now clicks away from ordering any product. Luckily, B2B sellers can also take advantage of the internet and sell directly to consumers. You might be wondering, how B2B business can switch to B2C eCommerce model.

How To Sell Direct To Consumers

There are two ways for a B2B businesses to switch to a B2C model without upsetting your B2B clients:

Maintain MAP Pricing

Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) pricing is when a B2B business sells to consumers at full retail value. This is the most transparent way where B2B clients know you are selling to consumers. They don’t feel threatened because you are selling at full retail whereas they can discount their items if they want to. This method works best for business that have a strong brand reputation both from consumers and resellers. In this approach you would use one website domain where B2B clients would have registered accounts that grant them access to special pricing and potentially products. Depending on the eCommerce platform you choose, you may be able to offer customer specific pricing as well as support advanced shipping logic based on B2B vs. B2C orders.

Create a Flanker Brand

For sellers that do not want their B2B clients to find out they are selling direct to consumers a flanker brand makes the most sense. A flanker brand is when a company creates a new brand to enter into the same existing market that they already service, but the new brand focuses on targeting a different set of customers (e.g. B2C instead of B2B). This way your B2B clients will just think the new flanker brand is another new competitor instead of their supplier. Creating a flanker brand can be tricky depending on how willing or unwilling a company is to getting caught by one of their B2B customers. For example, a true flanker brand would typically want to fulfill orders from a separate location. That way a B2B customers can’t look at the return address and realize it is actually shipping from the same address as their supplier. Flanker brands make a lot of sense when a business may have a strong brand reputation among B2B customers but not the general B2C consumer.

I’ve had a good amount of experience running both types of eCommerce businesses. Neither is better than the other, they both have their pros and cons, it really just depends on the situation. If you want help converting your B2B business to a B2C eCommerce business (or a B2B and B2C eCommerce business), feel free to contact me.

Derrick started his career as an Online Marketing Manager for a small eCommerce company that bought and sold used cell phones.For the past 9 years Derrick has covered the full spectrum of eCommerce positions, ranging from Sr. eCommerce Project Manager to Director of eCommerce for multiple companies.

Derrick has developed an expertise in B2C and B2B eCommerce, especially for sellers that have a presence on multiple sales channels (e.g. web, ebay, amazon, wholesale, retail, etc.) He is currently helping Taco Bell to pioneer eCommerce for the QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) industry.Derrick started ECOMsultant as a way to help other businesses outside of his day job to achieve their online sales goals.

Google Reviews

Derrick at ECOMsultant was extremely knowledgeable, professional and attentive to our particular business needs. We needed to update our old inadequate website and payment methods. After conversations on the phone and meeting us in Irvine to better understand our business, Derrick gave us comprehensive options and recommendations for our new website. Based on the ease of use, scalability, functions and cost, Derrick felt the Shopify platform would suit us best. He designed a beautiful website and with many great features linking it dynamically with Stripe (payment gateway), our social media, maps, analytics, Mail Chimp, etc. His expertise made the Shopify setup very smooth. He also trained us on how to interact, analyze and manage the site ourselves saving future cost and time. We are very happy we used ECOMsultant and our new website looks great, is more functional, easy to navigate and the notifications and reporting are fantastic!

I just want to take a minute and say what a pleasure it was working with Derrick and building my
e-commerce site From scratch. I was super nervous about how it works since it was my first time going through the process of setting up a website. Luckily I found Derrick first and didn’t have to learn the hard way with someone else. He made it so easy for me and it quickly became a fun project for both of us to work on. I would give him ideas that I had but he knew exactly how it to make what I wanted and so much more. Not only did he build an entire website in a fraction of the time others were quoting but he taught me how to run it myself! I would have never guessed I could manage my own site but Derrick showed me how simple it really is. Can’t thank him enough and have already recommended his consulting business to my friends and family!
Sincerely happy,
Jeff Robertson
CEO Rhodium Global Design

As an online small business owner, I am forever grateful for Derrick Chan's expertise. He was able to get right to the point analyzing and presenting my business gaps. Then he easily walked me through how he could help me increase sales, simplify and beautify user experience, and truly customize my online business model -- all with my company's success top of mind. All of my clients tell me how gorgeous and professional my ecommerce website is compared to all of my other small business competitors. Honestly, I truly believe that they buy from me over my competition based on my website!! The coolest part of this entire process was that Derrick trained me on the full Shopify platform so that I now know how to manage my own site. Derrick is the real deal; worth every penny.